twangster

Some see it as Royal choosing not to service a region but there in some cases they are being pushed to this outcome partially by their own choices going back several years now. Between IMO 2023 and Norway closing the fjords in many cases deployment choices are being impacted for the cruise industry. The UK/EU market is a good example. Iceland from Europe on older ships is all but being eliminated. Newer ships with lower emissions using fuel sources like LNG could do it, but Royal has very few ships with LNG and the ones they do have are too large for the Iceland market. It's not just a matter of Royal choosing not to serve the UK or EU markets as they have in the past, they don't have right sized ships that meet the technical requirements to service these routes given new operational requirements designed to lower ship emissions impacting the entire global shipping industry. This is largely by their own making choosing to build only mega ships with cleaner energy solutions, or by delaying the migration to cleaner energy compared to the competition. They saw this coming while ships like Ovation and Odyssey were being built but they choose to keep those ships running on MGO to save money on re-engineering them. Now, years later, they are trapped by that decision making, long before Jason Liberty was leading the company. Combined with the market in the US changing with so many new to cruise devouring cruises as a new untapped source of revenue, a target customer that prefers short cruises, Royal is chasing the short cruise business with mostly MGO based ships while they can, in the US that as a region is behind some European countries that individually are looking at or have created emissions changes for shipping.

Ship's arrival delayed until 10am due to the weather we had to push through coming from Iceland. My 8:00am meeting time for my excursion has been pushed to 10:00am. Today's excursion... Titanic Trail.

Day Twelve - Belfast, Ireland Progress report: Conditions: 85% chance of rain. Up to deck 13 for a coffee.

We had booked a tour that isn't on the website any longer involving Diamond Beach. He had taken a group there the day before our stop and there were no crystals on the beach so we adapted our tour. Reach out to them and tell them want you are looking for.

I like him.

10:16 pm deck 11. Proof of pizza.

10:10pm North Atlantic. Proof of life

Schooner Bar - Love all that glass. With piano tunes by Harrison Smart. Picture intentionally dark to obscure audience.

Day 12 cruise compass has been published JW day 12 cruisecompass.pdf

Something green. 🤣

Weather update. Captain barged into our cabins (over the PA) to inform us that the weather enroute has delayed our arrival into Belfast a couple of hours. Due to tides we have to depart Belfast at the originally scheduled time. Consequently we will have a shortened visit to Belfast.

The sun is out and blue skies are here. Beautiful sea day around 50F/10C.

Direct to ship wifi: RAVPower Fiilehub I had to do some channel hunting on the RAVPower. It sucked using channels 1 and 6. Channel 11 produced best results for where I am right now. Beryl AX with WiFi6 does much better than the RAVPower since it's dual band. Typically getting just over 110 Mbps with the Beryl.

Here on Jewel out of Amsterdam it’s pretty much the normal RCI beers you would find while in the Caribbean. So think mostly American brands just like they offer in the Caribbean.

Going through my camera roll I realized I forgot to post some information about the free city shuttle from the cruise ship pier in Reykjavik. In the little building we pass through to reach the ship or when leaving they have a display that cycles through some graphics. We are at terminal 315. The NCL Prima that was here the day prior was at terminal 312.

Starlink gateway city remains to be London. Starlink has performed consistently well through fog, rain, rough seas, etc. The 4K videos I have been uploading are nearly 1GB in size which never would have uploaded well using the older satellite tech. Starlink handled them quite well. Starlink is not entirely immune from rain fade but with the constellation operating at a lower altitude it's not as pronounced as it was with the legacy satellite tech.

Day Eleven - Sea Day Time change at 2am this morning. Going forward losing an hour. Passport collection today. Suites and pinnacle can drop off their passports in the lounge. Progress report: Sea conditions: The ship still has some small motion this morning estimated to get smoother midday however it is much better compared to yesterday. Speaking of the lounge, Andreas has become the Suite Concierge with Bing's departure to join Harmony. Andreas was the Crown Lounge concierge. A new Crown Lounge concierge has been named. Andreas told me their name but I can't remember it right now. The Concierge Club was pretty empty last night except for a core group of frequent cruisers who were not fazed by a little bit of ship motion. The Concierge Club up on deck 13 partially aft did have some motion last night. The running joke was that seat belts on the bar stools would have been helpful. 🙂 Later at the Schooner Bar the bar stools were doing their own thing spinning in circles as the ship moved. The haunting of the Schooner Bar. The live musicians played on.

Day 11 cruise compass is available : JW May 15 day 11 cruisecompass.pdf

Way too soon we had to leave Reykjavik. The city center in the distance. I think that is the church we drove past last night. Out in the open sea there is some wind but the ship is handling it well. I should sleep very well tonight.

Video of the 4x4 experience

So far it's not been very bad. There are some people who are sensitive to motion and sea sickness that are being impacted. There are many who are not. The venues around the ship are busy. As near as I can tell the performers are still playing live music everywhere. The casino was busy but more smoke free than normal so maybe this rough water is a good thing. 🙂 The theater performance has been cancelled tonight. Personally it hasn't bothered me in any way but I tend not be influenced by ship motion. A young lady in the lounge tonight said with some dramamine she is fine. Here approaching 11:00pm it has let up a little as I suspected it would . Understand this weather has nothing to do with your potential weather. Any sea any where can get rough weather including the Caribbean. This is Icelandic weather. In totality it has been very good for me.

Looks like YT is done processing my tour video from yesterday so here it is: I didn't put a lot of effort into this so don't expect too much as YT video go, but video does provide some more context.

So for an excursion I was trying to find a way out of, it turned out to be fantastic! I loved this excursion! Anyone can see Iceland from a highway but to see Iceland up close and off road was a unique experience. So worth it and the rain and wind added to the experience.

Still some snow up here. Just off trail steam was emanating from the ground. Tater noted this can be quite dangerous as you are likely to break through the crust when walking which would near instantly cause severe burns with extreme heat just below the surface. We approach another power plant location. When they bore a new hole down 3 or 4 km, they ket it vent for a period of time. Up close this sounded like a jet engine. Tater asks his friend over the rado why he wasn't moving as the CO2 is not good for the paint or windows. "I can't see" was the response. Sure enough when it was our turn, we couldn't see past the hood.

Instead of the 45 minute drive to Reykjavik, we go back off road. More moss covered lava flows. I think this additional off road session was added just for Tater as he seemed to be in his glory as was the driver of the black 4x4.